After buying some daily necessities with Fu Changding and Fang Ping, the three of them went to the cafeteria to eat.
As they ate, the three shared some of the strange and interesting things they'd encountered. Fu Changding especially was a chatterbox. Fang Ping and Lu Hao were better about it, only saying a thing or two before falling quiet.
But once Fu Changding got going, he never seemed to run out of things to say, complaining and sharing all sorts of inside information. Unlike Lu Hao and Fang Ping, who knew little about Magic Martial University, Fu Changding had gathered plenty of information. He'd come prepared.
At 2:30 in the afternoon, Lu Hao was packing up. He put all the pills he'd brought into his Storage Space, while leaving the Big Ring Blade in his room.
After all, it was too conspicuous to carry around as a weapon. He could just take it with him when he needed it.
Knock, knock, knock.
There was a knock at the door. Lu Hao opened it and saw Fu Changding.
"Come on, Lu Hao. We should head to the assembly. Since it's our first time, we need to make a good impression on the instructors."
Lu Hao nodded, gathered his things, and followed Fu Changding toward No. 1 Training Ground.
They stopped at Fang Ping's room to call him, and then the three of them headed to No. 1 Training Ground together.
They arrived before long. Some of the new students were already there, and quite a few people were seated in the stands—upperclassmen as well as instructors.
"Fu Changding, do we really have to show off in front of such a huge crowd?"
Seeing all the people in the stands watching, Fang Ping wondered if following Fu Changding's plan would leave him utterly humiliated in public.
"Fang Ping, what's wrong? Worried about embarrassing yourself? Martial artists have to fight for what they want. If we don't show what we can do, how will we get the instructors' attention? You don't have any connections, so this is your only way to get noticed. What, were you planning to pick a Rank Five instructor?"
Fu Changding said this when he saw Fang Ping hesitating.
"Fine, I'm in. So what if I embarrass myself? If it means I can choose a grandmaster as my instructor, I can live with it."
Remembering that he had no connections, Fang Ping decided he didn't care and prepared to go all in with Fu Changding.
"Lu Hao, what about you? If you join us, our plan will have an even better chance of working."
Seeing that Fang Ping had made up his mind, Fu Changding started trying to convince Lu Hao.
"I'll pass. Unless something unexpected happens, those grandmaster instructors already know me."
"Huh? Lu Hao, does someone in your family teach at Magic Martial University? Or does your family have connections—important ones?"
"No. I'm just a little unusual, that's all."
"What's so unusual about you? I can't see anything."
There's nothing unusual about me. I just killed a Rank Four Evil Cult martial artist. Lu Hao thought.
Fu Changding could tell Lu Hao really wasn't interested, so he dropped it and changed the subject.
"Lu Hao, Fang Ping, don't you think there are hardly any women in our class?"
Following Fu Changding's gaze, Lu Hao and Fang Ping looked over. He was right: there were barely any female freshmen on the entire training ground.
"Hey, where do the female students live? I haven't seen any of them."
Fang Ping asked.
"Didn't you see them? There are a few in District 1. Martial Universities don't separate the dorms by gender. We're all martial artists, and we might have to go on missions together. It makes sense for men and women to work together."
Fu Changding said.
"When we came downstairs, there were women right next to us. Didn't you notice?"
"...I really didn't. Those women are way too hard to tell apart."
Fang Ping said, exasperated.
"Don't say that in front of them, or they'll beat you up. I saw several women in the first ten rooms."
As the three chatted, more and more people gradually arrived at the training ground.
In the blink of an eye, it was three o'clock. A middle-aged man stepped onto the platform and suddenly shouted,
"Form ranks!"
There were no teachers or students guiding anyone on the training ground. Lu Hao and the other two obediently lined up, while everyone else formed ranks in small groups.
"Lu Hao, that instructor looks like he's hard to get along with," Fu Changding muttered.
"Yeah..." Fang Ping said.
"Quiet."
Lu Hao spoke up. He didn't recognize the man on the platform, but if nothing unexpected happened, he was a grandmaster. A grandmaster's mental power was more than enough to hear what everyone was saying and doing.
Before long, the uneven lines had formed, but people in the ranks were still talking.
Three minutes later,
The middle-aged man shouted again.
"Assembly time is over. Anyone who's late or hasn't joined the ranks will lose 20 academic credits!"
"Close the gates!"
As soon as the middle-aged man spoke, several students in martial arts uniforms closed off the training ground's entrance.
Some of the students still outside the ranks heard him. Though they didn't know what academic credits were for, they hurried toward the lines.
Just then, the middle-aged man on the platform barked, "Everyone, stay where you are!"
His sharp reprimand came with a suffocating pressure from his Vital Blood, mixed with a terrifying killing intent. The killing intent, however, didn't erupt.
Everyone was instantly frozen in place, too afraid to move.
Fang Ping was secretly stunned. How powerful is he? He could intimidate over a thousand martial artists at once. At the same time, Fang Ping looked at Lu Hao in surprise.
Nearly everyone present was trembling under the pressure of that Vital Blood, but Lu Hao remained perfectly still, as if he weren't affected at all.
Fu Changding also noticed that Lu Hao was the one "normal person" under the pressure of that Vital Blood. He knew far more than Fang Ping, who had no connections at all. His own grandfather was a Rank Six martial artist,
so he knew how powerful a Rank Six could be. In Fu Changding's eyes, the middle-aged martial artist on the platform was definitely a grandmaster. Yet Lu Hao wasn't affected in the slightest by the grandmaster's Vital Blood pressure.
How had Lu Hao managed that?
And Fang Ping's guess was right: Lu Hao hadn't been intimidated at all. But he wasn't protecting himself by resisting the Vital Blood pressure. He couldn't withstand a grandmaster's Vital Blood, after all.
What truly intimidated them wasn't the terrifying Vital Blood, but the trace of killing intent within it. It instinctively frightened these martial artists, who had never seen blood.
Lu Hao, however, had killed plenty of martial artists, so he also carried a considerable amount of killing intent. He simply kept it restrained. As a result, that trace of killing intent had no effect on him.
"Hello, students. Let me introduce myself. My name is Huang Jing, and I'm the dean of the Weaponry Academy!"
The middle-aged man didn't use a loudspeaker or a microphone, yet his words seemed to ring right beside everyone's ears.
"The principal is away, and both vice principals have important duties to attend to. I'll be hosting today's freshman ceremony!"
So this was Huang Jing.
Lu Hao looked at the middle-aged man on the platform. In the original story, Huang Jing had died in the Magic Martial Earth Cave while fighting the Earth Cave martial artists—a man who had devoted his life to the public and to humanity.
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